MS-DOS
     n : an operating system developed by Bill Gates for personal
         computers [syn: Microsoft disk operating system]

	

	MSDOS
     MicroSoft Disk Operating System (MS, OS, PC)

	

	MS-DOS /M-S-dos/ n. [MicroSoft Disk Operating System] A clone of
   CP/M for the 8088 crufted together in 6 weeks by hacker Tim Paterson
   at Seattle Computer Products, who called the original QDOS (Quick and
   Dirty Operating System) and is said to have regretted it ever since.
   Microsoft licensed QDOS in order to have something to demo for IBM on
   time, and the rest is history. Numerous features, including vaguely
   Unix-like but rather broken support for subdirectories, I/O redirection,
   and pipelines, were hacked into Microsoft's 2.0 and subsequent versions;
   as a result, there are two or more incompatible versions of many system
   calls, and MS-DOS programmers can never agree on basic things like what
   character to use as an option switch or whether to be case-sensitive.
   The resulting appalling mess is now the highest-unit-volume OS in
   history. Often known simply as DOS, which annoys people familiar with
   other similarly abbreviated operating systems (the name goes back to the
   mid-1960s, when it was attached to IBM's first disk operating system for
   the 360). The name further annoys those who know what the term
   operating system does (or ought to) connote; DOS is more properly a
   set of relatively simple interrupt services. Some people like to
   pronounce DOS like "dose", as in "I don't work on dose, man!", or to
   compare it to a dose of brain-damaging drugs (a slogan button in wide
   circulation among hackers exhorts: "MS-DOS: Just say No!"). See
   mess-dos, ill-behaved.

	

	MS-DOS
     
         /M S doss/ Microsoft Disk Operating System
        (Or "DOS", "MS-DOG", "mess-dos") Microsoft
        Corporation's clone of CP/M for the 8088 crufted
        together in 6 weeks by hacker Tim Paterson, who is said to
        have regretted it ever since.
     
        MS-DOS is a single user operating system that runs one
        program at a time and is limited to working with one megabyte
        of memory, 640 kilobytes of which is usable for the
        application program.  Special add-on EMS memory boards
        allow EMS-compliant software to exceed the 1 MB limit.
        Add-ons to DOS, such as Microsoft Windows and DESQview,
        take advantage of EMS and allow the user to have multiple
        applications loaded at once and switch between them.
     
        Numerous features, including vaguely Unix-like but rather
        broken support for subdirectories, I/O redirection, and
        pipelines, were hacked into MS-DOS 2.0 and subsequent
        versions; as a result, there are two or more incompatible
        versions of many system calls, and MS-DOS programmers can
        never agree on basic things like what character to use as an
        option switch or whether to be case-sensitive.  The resulting
        mess is now the highest-unit-volume operating system in
        history.  It is used on many Intel 16 and 32 bit
        microprocessors and IBM PC compatibles.
     
        Many of the original DOS functions were calls to BASIC (in
        ROM on the original IBM PC), e.g. Format and Mode.  People
        with non-IBM PCs had to buy MS-Basic (later called
        GWBasic).  Most version of DOS came with some version of
        BASIC.
     
        Also know as PC-DOS or simply as DOS, which annoys people
        familiar with other similarly abbreviated operating systems
        (the name goes back to the mid-1960s, when it was attached to
        IBM's first disk operating system for the IBM 360).  Some
        people like to pronounce DOS like "dose" or to compare it to a
        dose of brain-damaging drugs (a slogan button in wide
        circulation among hackers exhorts: "MS-DOS: Just say No!").
     
        [Jargon File]
     
        (1998-07-19)